Though molues are banned from major roads and bridges in Lagos, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which replaced them, seem not to be better. According to commuters, BRT buses are fast becoming a contraption on wheels, writes Adeyinka Aderibigbe
Anthony Adebisi was angry last Friday night. The itinerant trader in men’s shoes and accessories was incensed like other passengers at the insensitivity of the driver and conductor of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), who preferred to ‘do their thing’ at that time of the night.
It was 9.20 p.m. and Adebisi, after waiting for about two hours on queue for the Agege-bound BRT bus at the Oshodi station, thought it would load its passengers and move on, but the driver and his mate had another idea. With the bus filled, the conductor began to holler for passengers to stand on the gangway.
Adebisi, who observed that such has been the practice every night, began to fume. Despite his annoyance, the ticketer went on with his business. He packed the passengers tightly, ensuring that they filled every space in the bus, till there was no leg room left.
Yet, the driver was reluctant to move, thereby incuring the anger of more passengers, who joined Adebisi in shouting at him and the ticketer. When he eventually moved, the ticketer was still screaming and beckoning on commuters on all bus stops on the route.
“That has been their usual practice,” Adebisi told The Nation. Every night, these guys would stay at the loading point and wouldn’t allow another bus to load, until they carried those who will stand. No matter how many buses were on the queue, at Cappa, where the buses are temporarily parked to avoid congesting the road, the one loading wouldn’t move until it carried those would stand, it is as if the returns on standing is for drivers and conductors to share,” he said.
He said he was always infuriated because the people carried on with so much impunity, as if they were above the law.
“I will make sure I report you guys,” Adebisi threatened. “If this is how you guys will run this BRT with 45 sitting and 100 standing, then there is no point taking molue off the road,”he said.
Packing passengers like sardine, like the old Bolekaja (come down let’s fight) and molue before it, which made the late inimitable Fela Anikulapo Kuti come up with the song: Suffering and Smiling; is not a peculiar commuting experience on the Oshodi/Agege route.
The BRT, which is run by the Lagos Bus Assets Management Company (LAGBUS), an all- purpose assets management vehicle by the government has become a glorified contraption that provides mass shuttle services to the bustling population of commuters around the state.
The Na tion’s investigation last week showed that commuters stand in the BRT buses the way they did in the old decrepit molue buses, which the Lagos State government has banned from major roads within the metropolis.
From Ikorodu to Oshodi, Oshodi to Mile 2; Oshodi to Ikotun, and Agege to Ishaga, or Agege to Secretariat, or CMS to Oshodi, or Ojota to Eko-Idumota, it is fashionable for commuters to stand in these maxi buses.
But the practice is not limited to the BRT buses alone. Under the scheme, other franchisees, such as the Trade Union Congress (TUC), which was given about four routes, among other transportation firms, and the NURTW Cooperative Ltd., which runs the dedicated blue buses along with other Bus Franchise Scheme (BFS) operators, who are under the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authourity’s (LAMATA) supervision do same with impunity on all the routes they plied.
A ticketer, on the Sango-Ota-Oshodi route, who simply identified himself as Mike, said the practice to overload the vehicle might not be unconnected with targets set for them by their management.
He said many of the franchisees were still battling to recoup their investments, which came from bank loans.
There is also the angle of the huge demand for the mass transit buses by Lagosians.
He said his route, which is being handled by the TUC buses, which put more vehicles the route, has begun to experience the pressure because “the demand for our buses gradually outstripping supply.”
Mike, who said he witnessed such pressures only during the rush hours in the mornings and at night, said the solution lies in increasing the numbers of vehicles on the roads.
A driver on the Agege-Oshodi road, who preferred anonymity, said drivers on the route were acting on directive from above. Though he would not volunteer more details, the driver said the directive might have come due to the market research that indicated that many may not really mind opting to stand inside the buses.
He said: “We weren’t packing passengers like this before. But, sometimes last year, a directive came from the office that we should be carrying those standing and if you look at it, we do this only during rush hours, when there are many passengers. At any other time when traffic is calm, we just carry our normal seating capacity and move.”
He, however, said it is even the passengers that often beg us to come on board the buses and stand, especially those of them who are running behind a deadline or running out of time.
Though the driver might be right, some Lagosians said the standing option, which ordinarily, ought to be a last resort is fast becoming the fad.
A resident Mrs Ronke Oladimeji said the distortion to the BRT masterplan, which the standing option represents, is fast eroding the gains of the state’s public sector transportation.
Mrs. Oladimeji, an Advert executive, recalled that when it came on board on March 17, 2008, the BRT buses were designed to be the government’s response to the nagging issues of mass transportation in the metropolis.
Kicking off the project six years ago, Governor Babatunde Fashola had dreamt up an initiative that would provide the needed elixir to the nightmare that mass commuting has become in the state.
Fashola envisaged that in some few years, the BRT would have become a needed means of transportation for the upwardly mobile middle class, such that the executives would prefer to park their vehicles at home, especially on week days and opt for the BRT.
And it seem the BRT was up to fill that vacuum and occupy its pride of place in public sector transportation management in the first few years of its introduction when the government claimed its records showed the BRT now takes over seventeen million people across the state every month.
Invariably, by the state’s record, 204 million passengers patronised the BRT yearly. The development encouraged the government to delineate more routes, and add more buses to the existing fleet to ensure that more areas around the state are covered.
The Commissioner for Transportation Comrade Kayode Opeifa, who made this known the re-fleeting initiative known said about 250 new vehicles are being expected to be added to further strengthen the public transportation system in the state.
Though the government would want Lagosians to believe the BRT brand as an effective public sector transportation option is still on course and getting stronger, available facts are showing that the state’s mass shuttle buses are losing the steam and its allure especially among the middle class.
Though the staate has further strengthened the BRT scheme by ensuring that no one uses the dedicated lanes meant for the buses, the bulk of the middle class are yet to fully buy into the dream of the public transportation scheme.
Transportation experts say the cold shoulders from the economically active segment of the state’s economy remains the way the scheme is still being run.
The absence of professionals in the discharge of transportation services in the BRT services remains a major drawback, Mr. Tunde Ojuola said.
According to him, a business executive with an early morning appointment to catch up with would not see the BRT as an option where his personal car provides not only the solution, but the comfort. To address the comfort of this class of residents, the government’s initial policy was to introduce air-conditioned buses.
These set of buses, however, couldn’t operate for more than six months before it was abandoned.
Though the governor would admit that getting the rich and the active middle class on the public transportation remains a work in progress, he has in the meantime ensured that the poor and average income, at the grassroots, which the BRT presently accommodates, have unfettered access on the road.
Jam packed buses, dirty interior, thorn seat covers, and buses in different stages of disrepair, are few of the challenges besetting the six- year initiative leaving a negative impact on the passenger traffic and patronage.
A LAGBUS official, who preferred anonymity, said even with the challenges, the BRT is still a major cash cow.
The official, who preferred not to be named, said LAGBUS makes allocates N10 million weekly to service and fuel the vehicles, adding that it is baffling that many of the vehicles were still an eyesore despite the money deplored to keep them.
He said: “Though the initial problem the agency confronted was sourcing spare parts for the vehicles, it has since gone pass that stage as some of the parts are already being produced in the country.”
Ojuola, who, however, believes service delivery in the sector remains very poor, called for the training and retraining of all the drivers and conductors (ticketers), to arm them with appropriate skills that would make them offer services that could rank at par with what obtains anywhere in the world.
It is only by taking charge of the structure, he continued, that the government would make the sector more attractive and rolls the carpet off the feet of thugs parading as ticketers, drivers and other allied workers on public sector transportation.
